Finding (or not finding) religion...

guys... a bit off the usual blog entries just an article I threw together after an interesting plane flight... this is by no means meant to be critical of any Religion, rather it is an internal reflection. Apologies if this insults anyone.

After a recent trip to India I was flying back into Bangladesh, the beautiful Islamic country that I now call home. On the flight back into Dhaka I was seated next to a rather conservative Muslim (well at least for Bangladesh standards) who murmured texts of the Koran before and during take off. Not perturbed by his behaviour, I engaged him in basic conversation – where he was from, why he had been overseas… the usual aeroplane chit-chat. He happened to notice that I was reading Mother Teresa’s biography and engaged me in conversation about my religious beliefs.

During my time in Bangladesh I have been often asked about my religion and whether I am Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist etc. I have often tried to not engage in conversation with the questioner as I find it too hard to explain to them how I am Agnostic. This behaviour of mine is because not having any beliefs or a God totally perplexes the devout Bangladeshis but also because I often do not have an answer as to why I never followed the mass of Australian population to find the Christian God.

This time was different, I had a 3 hour flight and I felt it time that I not only answered his questions about why I wasn’t a Christian, but also time for me to understand my rationale for never throwing myself into Christianity. The conversation went down the usual path – “you have to have a religion” and “how can you not have a God?” I tried to explain to him that I have doubts about some of the Christian teachings and that I require a solid rationale backing my beliefs, I cannot just have blind faith. I am not sure if it was our English-Bengali language differences, but somehow these ideas of mine were out of comprehension for my Muslim friend.

Subsequently, I asked him how he knows that the word of Islam is correct for him and that other religions are such not correct. He answered “that the true Prophet, Prophet Mohammad (Peace be upon Him), came down as the messenger of Allah… ” although I cannot remember exactly what he stated, it unfortunately did not answer to me why other religions were not correct. I then informed him that even though I have tried my hardest during my time in Bangladesh to understand Islam, I had not learnt enough to say that his Islamic beliefs were not the correct beliefs for me, therefore how could I say that any of my religious beliefs were correct?

This conversation had finally given me the answer to my religious identity. An issue that I had not only struggled with whilst living in Bangladesh, but also growing up as a kid in rural Australia and living in a Christian college whilst at university. Later, whilst I thought more about this conversation I realised that a lack of understanding about each others religions was not just restricted to me and my new Muslim friend 3000 feet in the air, but such lack of understanding exists the world over and is the reason for so much division and hostility.

What was worse was that such ignorance exists in my own country, within a highly educated and multicultural community. I had friends throughout school and university who, at such a young age, would happily walk blindly into Christianity without ever investigating what other religions were available and questioning whether such a religion was the right fit for them. I could never imagine these friends stepping into a lifetime marriage without posing these 2 questions, so how could they commit to a more important relationship with their God without considering them?

What is most important is not what religion I am, it is whether I love thy neighbour and treat all my fellow brother and sisters equally, regardless of religion or any other factor that might differentiate us. Remember it was Mother Teresa, whom a devout Catholic, demonstrated to the world that no matter if we are Hindu, Islamic or any other religion; we are all children of God. Whether that God is Vishnu, Allah or even Mother Nature, it does not matter as we are all fellow human beings.

Bangers gets Bashed... AGAIN...

Hi all...

I know that I have been lazy in keeping this Blog up-to-date, but I will get Burma and Cricket in India posts up soon.

I have no doubt that the western press have caught onto the mass destruction that has been caused throughout the country. Fortunately I and the majority of Dhaka remained relatively unscathed.

Instead it was again the less developed rural areas that bore the brunt of cyclone SIDR. Many villages were not only blown over by the 15o mph winds but the storm surge that accompanied the winds was reported to be up to 15 feet, washing away many of the low-lying coastal villages. Fortunately, if any fortune can come out of this event, the cyclone crossed land within the Sundabans Nature Reserve which is a massive (relative to Bangladesh land size) uninhabited mangrove forest. If it had crossed in a more densely populated area of Bangladesh (read: anywhere else) the death toll and destruction would have been much much worse.

Please offer any support that you can to this country, it needs all the support it can get during this troubled time.

A Rickshaw Adventure...

Ok, where do I begin…

Many of you would know that I had invested in a Rickshaw for a young boy, Ani, who had been riding me around Dhaka every so often. The agreement that we had come to was that I would make the initial capital investment into the rickshaw (8000 tk) and that he would continually work for me (be there for me 24 hours a day – as he said at the time!) for 3 months and that the rickshaw would be his.

What I thought would be a good idea. A bit of a win-win situation for us both, he provide me with a service that I require everyday to get to and from work as well as when I go out socially and I provide him with an interest free micro-credit loan that he would pay off in kind and also remove him of the burden of having to pay 100tk per day to hire his previous rickshaw.

After informing many of my friends back home via email, I got a lot of well wishes from them hoping that it all works out well. Almost like they could tell from their distance that this relationship was going to be a problem. Little did I realize this at the time.

It all started out rather smoothly, he would catch the bus to my house and pick me up at 830am, work throughout the day and then pick me up at 5pm to take me home. Easy really. The first bump we came to was the need for a rickshaw license. How much? I enquire. Twenty Thousand Taka he responds! What? Why had you not told me about this hidden cost beforehand? Probably because he knew that I would say no. Anyway, I told him I couldn’t manage that money for this license… so against my morals he buys one on the black market for 1000tk, of course with my money!

In week 2 of our relationship, I am left standing outside my house for 2 consecutive mornings at 845 with no rickshaw, or wallah in sight. No call, nothing! Later those days he rings me at 2pm to inform me that he is sick. I tell him that if so he needs to call me at 8am to tell me. No problems, I promise he says.

In week 3 not only does one of our wheels break on the rickshaw (300tk) but the kid continually begs for a mobile phone. An idea that sounds interesting for me, as now I will be able to contact him rather than waiting for my daily phone calls from him to tell me that he cant make it. I provide him my old mobile on the proviso that he pays me back 50 tk a day until he pays 2000tk. He promises 50tk a day.

Also around this time he asks if he can borrow my bicycle so that he can ride to and from my place rather than having to pay for the bus, I don’t see the problem with this, as by this time I had started riding the rickshaw around the area when I needed to do things, so as long as I have one of the bikes I am happy. The agreement with him using the bike was provided that he kept upkeep and maintenance of it.

All of a sudden one week I just don’t see him or rarely hear from him, and when he does call it sounds like the voice I put on when ringing my manager to pull a sickie. I try calling him and there is no connection, what is he up to or what has happened to him? Either way, why wont he be honest to me about it?

I had become really annoyed with his lack of work or communication. The following week, he has bruises and scars over his body, not sure if they are self inflicted. Tells me that he got mugged and bashed and the bike was damaged and that he was fixing it. I was more worried about his welfare than the bike; we agreed that we would go to the police with the problem but he never followed me up on that. During this time he also informed me that his brother in law had taken the mobile phone for a few weeks and that it would return soon. He had also stopped paying the 50tk a day for it claiming that he had been sick and not worked and therefore couldn’t pay me!

Things kinda continued the same, he would turn up 3/5 days a week and he never had the mobile or rode the bike to my place. I eventually gave him an ultimatum – he produce the mobile and bike or we would be finished.

During this time the rickshaw seat broke and we agreed that we would fix it… I somehow, stupidly in hindsight, gave him 2000tk to head off and fix it. He had sold me on a story that he would pay 4000tk of it and me 2000tk. Where was the guy going to get 4000tk from???? He wasn’t even paying back the mobile! Little surprise that the seat never got fixed did it!

Anyway the deal was that he had to continually work for me and if he was not going to make it in the morning he had to call and have a darn good excuse. He went well with the first week and I thought that he might have turned the corner… but he didn’t turn up for two days in a row. That’s when I called it quits and told the guards that he wasn’t allowed into the house to pickup the rickshaw anymore.

One weekend when I was out, he came over and the guards refused him. He complained and complained to them but also my flat mates that they let him in and I would sort him out when I got back in an hour. Anyway, somehow the guards let him leave with the rickshaw! I got a call from him that night as one of his friends had caught him trying to sell the rickshaw, I went across town to where he was and found out the true story of what he had been up to…

I was informed that the kid had a gambling problem and had gambled himself into massive debts so much so that he had lost my mobile and my bicycle in the games that he had been playing. I never found out how much trouble he has got himself into, but realize that I have done all I can to try and give this kid a chance in life and he has just thrown it back in my face. I continually got promises after promises about what the money, the bike and the phone. I had lost so much money on trying to help him and all he did was lie to me and cheat me.

As hard as it was to say no to a guy that has a gambling debt, I had to cut ties. For now it is time to look for a new wallah to ride my rickshaw… maybe Mohammad Yunis is onto something with lending micro-credit to women only… if only there were women rickshawallahs!

Did I have bad karma today???

Whenever friends ask how things are going here in Dhaka, the answer usually comes back in the positive. Even if there has been a few negative things going on that day, the positives usually outweigh these negatives... except for today, where I felt karma was against me.

Today... 1 week away from my 3 and 1/2 week adventure in India and Burma, I thought it time to finally sort out my ticket over to India (yes, I am as organised as ever!). I headed off to the Air India offices (had given up on the travel agents here... as you would say here - couldn't organise a farting comp in a downtown curry house!) I get there and find that I need to have my passport to finalise my ticket, quickly remember that my passport isn't at home, rather waiting for me to pick it up at the Burma Embassy! Ok, not probs... get in a CNG (tuk tuk), go to the embassy, pick it up and come back and pay for my ticket that is cancelling tomorrow.

No CNG's would go on the meter... so I paid double! A usual 1/2 hour, 10km trip up to the embassy, took well over an hour. Upon arriving at the embassy, I was informed that I had to come back at 4pm, during pick-up hour! Ok, back into the CNG - back home to complete more errons. Four kms into the journey we hit a massive traffic jam, another 20mins and 500m's further and my CNG runs out of gas. With no other CNG's around, it must be quicker to walk... hmmm that's what I thought - somehow the jam clears, but I am committed to walking!

Anyway, walk 5kms back home. Do a few errons... some positives for the day! Get a rickshaw home 2kms, this time make it one km and hit another jam! This time the wallah tells me in broken English "big jam". Ok back on foot. Reach home, but then have to leave to the embassy straight-away in order to beat the post 3:30pm work Ramadan rush home so all the crazed and rushed commuters can break their fasts on time.

Luckily, walk out the front door and hail a CNG straight away. Unluckily this CNG breaks down within 1km! Half hour wait and we get a push start from another CNG... fingers crossed. Again, "big jam" was ahead of us. Did the trip in 50 min after the push-start. Off to the embassy, they ask me for money for my passport. But I had paid! After a few heated words, the guy that i paid came out and sorted it for me. Ok, last trip back down to home. Surely it cant get worse!

It amazingly did! I fought with others for CNG's and got a extortionated price of 100 taka, a price that a local would never pay to head on my journey. All I cared is that I got a CNG home and the CNG not break down. Fortunately it didn't break down, well at least not for an extended period of time! But the roads were total gridlock... my driver took me through every nook and cranny that he knew! The journey went for ages, I even resorted to napping on the really uncomfortable hard seats, calling my parents... I did everything I thought possible to entertain myself for this time. My frustration levels had burst, I was starting to getting really agitated with the many beggars along the way, how could I explain to them that the multiple CNG drivers for the day had all of my money... I was out of any loose cash!

Anyway, I finished the day with a triumph. The CNG driver had started the trip with a fresh meter and amazingly in our 2 hour trip home (which inc over an hour of stationary waiting) the meter had made it over the 100 taka we had agreed on!

But unfortunately still no ticket to Delhi! I have achieved nothing but to sit in multiple CNGs for a day!

Democratic Violence

Ok, usually I don’t blog off the top of my head, I usually try to plan what I blog…. Which I guess could explain why there are no blogs for the last month or so. Anyway, after reading the international papers and TV reports about all the problems in Dhaka I feel it necessary to detail the problems that we are currently experiencing here.

Firstly… a quick and basic political history of Bangladesh – Bengal was the capital of the East India Company when colonization was at its peak, it then took an almighty fall as the English pulled out and gave authoritarian rights to India who then split Bengal into East and West because they saw Bengal to be too strong as one state. In 1947 India created a separate state, Pakistan, as its own Muslim state. East Bengal (now Bangladesh) became part of Pakistan where West Bengal remained part of India. Pakistan was an absolute failure, all decisions were made in West Pakistan even though there was 2000kms separating them from Bangladesh (East Pakistan). In 1971 there was a civil war that brought about the split of West Pakistan and Bangladesh. In 1975 the father of the nation was gunned down with his family by operatives of the govt, few years later another great leader of the liberation was assassinated. The following decade was lead by a western backed dictator, in 1991 another civilian uprising saw the return of democracy. Unfortunately this did not lead to true democracy, rather the political model was referred as “the famine and the feast” – government party would feast for 4 years whilst it was in power and then famine for the next 4 years as the other party feasted. This model lead to a great deal of corruption, such corruption led to the failed election of early of this year where neither party trusted that the election would be held fairly both claiming that the other had rigged it. So now we are in a “State of Emergency” where the country is governed by a group of advisers backed by the Military.

So on Monday all of the current problems started, a soccer match was being played at Dhaka Uni (who like to refer to themselves as the “Oxford of the East”) between two departments. Unfortunately, as the match headed to a shoot out a student mistakenly stood in front of some army officers, who have been occupying the campus since the State of Emergency. The student along with 2 of his friends were then badly beaten by the army personnel and hospitialised.

As I have been informed by a Bengali friend of mine, you don’t mess with DU students as DU students have been the first voice in many of the civilian uprisings in the past. This was a perfect point in case as on Monday it took the students less than an hour for stones to be thrown and demands issued. They requested for a public apology to be made and for the army to be removed off campus immediately (app. not the first problem the army had caused). But unfortunately the army had taken too long to react and the rioting against police and armed forces broke out across the city.

Living in Dhanmondi we are fortunate to live in the centre of the city and also get the benefits of the open green areas of the university nearby, unfortunately when situations as describe above happen we are in very close proximity to where the action is likely to overflow into. On both Tuesday and Wednesday, it was just that. Students and their fellow revelers (mostly hawkers and the unemployed) went on a rampage through the streets of Dhaka as well as other cities where students had also started to protest.

On Wednesday afternoon a curfew was imposed and students were told to vacate their dorms as all public universities were shut down, I decided to walk home from work (~30mins) it was relatively quiet on the streets along the way home, but I arrived to the busiest road in Dhaka (a road only 3 blocks from my house)and there was burning cars, tear gas and thousands of rioting students and even a greater number of onlookers. I joined the onlookers for a while and got a few snaps from a 100m’s away. Decided to back track and make my way home the safe way. I went passed the cricket field where I joked around with the head coaches for a bit. They told me I should pick up some food because, as they predicted, we will be locked up for a while.

I was off the main road now, but instinct, intrigue and this advice of collecting food led me partially back towards the trouble, and towards my favourite local kebab hotel/restaurant – ‘Star Kebab’. I am not sure why I gave up on the idea of getting some kebab and nan, but fortunately for me I had decided that I didn’t need food and had only walked 50m’s from the hotel before there was a massive onrush of rioters towards the restaurant wielding their battens, bricks and rocks. I joined the other onlookers in a quick 30 m dash to get away from scene as for the next 2 and a half hours Star Kebab was smashed, looted and burnt. A sad act of brutality on what is a favourite restaurant of not just mine but many a student from the area.

This behaviour recurred to many similar institutions around the city, behaviour far from the initial targets of the army and armed forces. This lead me think to why such an incident can lead to such chaos, rioting and civil unrest? Currently the Bangladesh population, in general, aren’t all well off, flooding is in 40 of the 64 districts which has dramatically pushed up the price of essentials; many of the poor hawkers have lost their shops through the anti-corruption drive by the military backed interim government; democratic polls are over a year away and party politics has been banned under the state of emergency rules, which leaves many highly political citizens frustrated.

I could understand how the above points lead to a nation getting frustrated, but the level of their frustrations was not sufficient to explain the extremes of their actions against their innocent brothers who owned the torched cars and looted businesses. But I thought further, the nation has been depressed by autocratic leadership for so long that they didn’t know any other method of expressing their opinions and inciting change. They were not beneficial like me to have grown up in a true democratic society where leaders were responsible to their constituents. Rather they had been oppressed by the East India Company, then an India that didn’t want them, then Western Pakistan that abused their rights whilst governing from afar, then they had their 2 heroes of their independence war politically assassinated, then years of a dictator that was overthrown for corruption based politics.

With this history you can understand why the nation reacted the way it did to the current unelected government, the only way that these men and their fathers and their grandfathers have had a voice has been through violent means.

Unforgettable Moments

We all have these small moments that happen in our lives that somehow create a much larger impact upon than one would originally think. Often these moments would be deemed insignificant to another, but instead they tug at your emotional and psychological state so much so that you cannot forget a millisecond of such a moment.

Today I was having my usual Sonibar (Saturday), starting with a late wake up and then a trip down to my local café for breakfast for the usual eggs and toasts. I then took a trip in a CNG (3 wheel auto-rickshaw) to the orphanage, which actually happened to clean up a lady that didn’t look to cross the road and stepped out right in front of us; but she managed to pick herself up again… a tough lesson in road crossing for her. Although it quite shocked me, it still didn’t inflict the aforementioned moment.

I arrived at the orphanage to give the toddler boys their weekly male role-model interaction that they always really look forward to. As soon as I arrived, I was swamped with the screams of “uncle” and “uncy, uncy” as well as numerous cuddles. The afternoon was filled with the usual ball games, the stealing and wearing of my hat and thongs and the odd potty training incident. Again, these few hours didn’t quite create that unforgettable moment, even as it was the last day at the orphanage of one of my favourite toddlers.

I wandered through the old city for a while, and somehow I ended up at the national stadium watching a top-league clash in the national football league. I was admitted into the VIP section for only 100 taka ($1.80). It was an interesting game that ended up goalless, although both teams had legitimate goals ruled out which left me really worried about the livelihood of the referee who was escorted off the pitch by 10 policemen.

In what had been a really fruitful and enjoyable day for me, I jumped in a cyclo-rickshaw just as the monsoonal rains hit. It was whilst on this trip home that the one certain moment was etched into my mind forever. We had come to a stop at a major intersection waiting to cross. Finally we got our chance as the policeman waved us through, surprisingly we were not given even 10 seconds to get across before he was trying to pull us up, many rickshaws continued to go even though the policeman was blowing his whistle and waving his stick. In his fury, the policeman stormed across to where an obedient rickshaw-wallahs had stopped his rickshaw, although hesitantly, upon the policeman’s request. The disgruntled policeman then proceeded to punish him through stabbing his tyres with a sharp object, a method that is sadly all too regularly used.

This was not the moment that will be etched in my memory forever, rather my memory is of the wallah turning around in the monsoonal rain to the hissing of his tyre and I can clearly remember his face dropping into despair as the sole income generating tool of him and his family had just been ruined for the day. His face stared not at me but into oblivion, his eyes welled up and a few tears joined the raindrops that were rolling down his cheek. He had realised not only was he going to have to pay to repair the tyre, he wasn’t going to be able to get any work for the rest of the afternoon. This ultimately meant that he wasn’t probably going to be able to feed his family for the day.

It is amazing how one stupid action can have such devastating effects… sadly this is a problem that happens at a national level here, not just to the poor wallah trying to earn a crust.

Bangladesh - A Fantasy Kingdom???

When it costs US$63 for an adult to get into Disneyland, many tourists do not really blink an eyelid, but here in Bangladesh a trip to “Fantasy Kingdom” only costs US$4 for an adult entry ticket but yet the average bangladeshi's family trip to this kingdom will cost them approximately a tenth of their yearly household income. Although “Fantasy Kingdom” isn’t Disneyland, it is the closest that many of the 140 million Bangladeshi’s will get to “a wonderland where your dreams come true” – a wonderland that doesn’t present any of the realistic elements of the poverty outside but somehow this US$600 million theme-park can exist in a city where approximately a quarter of it population (3 million) live in slums.

My expedition to this new kingdom was lead by intrigue, although I wasn’t sure what I was most intrigued about; was it the intrigue in seeing women in burkha’s going down waterslides, or the chance to experience a western theme-park all for $8, or was it just to see such a juxtaposition within society, or just simply was it a chance to get out of Dhaka? To be honest I think that it was all of these factors that led me to heading north-west of Dhaka in a beaten up old taxi!

After an initial fight with the attendant at the gate about whether he was charging us skin tax on top of the price we had seen in the paper that morning, in retrospect we were arguing over $3, but somewhere between the marketing department and the gates there was a 100% increase. To be honest it is a wonderful advertising ploy, get people to come an hour out of town with the expectation of a day in a “Fantasy Kingdom”… and then offer them the options of a 100% increase in price or a return trip back to a place far from the world of “Fantasy Kingdom”.

So our little aussie possie decided to spend the day in the “water world” half of the kingdom, far from Bangla reality was this kingdom. There were girls showing skin and not getting stared at, teenage boys and girls openly cuddling and flirting in public, no crowd watching the foreigners every second move… and of course $600 million of theme-park fun! But the reality of all of the waterslides, the random water cave disco and the biggest rollercoaster in Bangladesh was all gone when it was time to get stuffed back onto the hot and humid local bus home!

Tiger Pride

During my travels I have found that every nation has found something or someone to be extremely proud of, so proud that it can be an executable offence to whisper a bad word on the subject. In Thailand its the King, in China its Chairman Mao, Vietnam Uncle Ho, Turkey its Kemal Attaturk, in Ireland its the Guinness, in Scotland it’s the fact that they’re not England, Jamaica its Bob Marley and the Ganga, America has its gun laws (or lack thereof) and even us Aussies have Bob Hawke and his drinking record!

But the Bangladeshis seem to have a great amount of pride for everything of theirs – the language (what other country has a national holiday to celebrate their language?), the tea hills, the design of their rickshaws, the longest beach in the world (although Wikipedia says that there are many longer… but never claim that to a local!), their two Nobel Laureates… the list is endless. Over the last two months you can add ‘The Tigers’ to that list. For those unknown to who “The Tigers” are, they are the national cricket team named after the national animal of Bangladesh that is said to be seen as commonly as its Tasmanian namesake.

The country was in a state of euphoria during the Cricket World Cup. Their Tigers, ranked last out of all test playing nations were the pride of Bangladesh throughout the 6 week cup journey. The excitement started with a win over eventual semi-finalists New Zealand in a warm-up game, the talk on the street was whether they could continue this form into the Tournament – the media down talked it just a fluke and that it was NZ that played badly… How the media ate their words!

Three AM on the 18th March will be a defining time in the short history of Bangladesh, for they had beaten their former colonial rulers, India, in what could only be described as a massive upset, a result that saw the powerhouse Indians knocked out of the World Cup.

In all of the excitement, the citizens took to the street, but with a strange sense of confusion. Confusion, not because they had registered the biggest sporting win in their country’s history, but because it was one of the first times that Bangladeshis were united on the streets with excitement and patriotism, rather than the all so common strikes and hartals against the country’s continual corrupt government. This time there was no throwing of projectiles or burning of political effigies. Rather there was the hugging of strangers as every man and his son danced down street singing “My Bangladesh, Your Bangladesh, Our Bangladesh”. That morning all newspapers were delivered late as the print run did not start until the celebrations had finished and reported. The newspapers had digested the words that they had written a week ago and honoured the Tigers with a red font headline, a headline font that was last used when the State of Emergency was announced.

Although the Tigers lost their following game to Sri Lanka, there was even more dancing and singing in the streets after the Tigers beat Bermuda and had against all expectations qualified the for the following stage of the tournament. Celebrations continued long into the morning, headlines were again red, along with many of the revellers eyes, as they made their way to work straight from the celebrations.

The following game they were drawn against Australia. Who was I to support - My mother nation of 23 years or my newly adopted home? My decision was easily made when I was informed that if Bangladesh did indeed beat Australia the chances of a national holiday being called were quite high. I grabbed a green and red bandanna and followed the hordes to Dhaka University, the only live site within Dhaka. Upon arrival, we found that the area had been closed off, not even uni students were being allowed in. The site had been packed full with the students taking up every vantage point that they could find, from the roofs of surrounding buildings to the branches on the adjacent trees. For once it was beneficial to be the white foreigner in a sea of black locals, as we were allowed to squeeze in with the local fans that had already started to sing and dance.

The game did not start for 5 hours as the rain stalled proceedings, but this rain did not hold back the Deshi’s from dancing and singing as to each of the revellers that day at Dhaka University their Tigers were already winners! The eventual thumping from the Aussies and many other teams within the world cup only put a small halt on the celebrations… as Their Tigers were now competing on the world stage!

Discovering the 'real' Bangladesh

As I stepped off the plane I was immediately hit by a wave of excitement, I had finally arrived at my new home for the year. This wave of euphoria only lasted for a few moments until I was hit by an even greater wave, a wave of thickly polluted humidity. Little was I ready for wave of mosquitoes that followed. Luckily, these persistent little buggers that will plague me for the next 12 months don’t carry Malaria, only the nauseating Dengue fever – which I have already succumbed myself to sometime in the near future.

As I walked through the International airport, which to me felt far from International after 3 hours earlier being in Singapore, I could already sense this country’s financial desperation. Foreign investors were treated to the same privileges as diplomats, as they were rushed through the express immigration lane. If only I had known that 30 minutes earlier, I would have ticked yes to the ‘are you carrying over US$10,000’ question on the immigration card and I would have been whisked away to a nirvana of air-conditioning and no mosquitoes. Instead I joined the masses to sweat though immigration and collect my own baggage.

I waited for ages at the baggage carousel and as everyone else’s luggage had arrived, I was starting to doubt whether mine would arrive, and if it did, would my cricket bat, which I would later find to be worth over ½ as much as the annual average household income, be still in my cricket bag? To my surprise, the bag with bat intact was personally delivered to me by a member of the airport crew, someone who knew its value and didn’t want to put it though the baggage carousel. I repaid the man with a 15 minute conversation on the upcoming Cricket World Cup and whether Bangladesh could one day be like Australia, I now think that maybe he meant this more than just on the cricket field.

The following week involved me, and my fellow volunteers being chauffeured to and from our the volunteer program office and the aptly named "Hotel de Castle". Protected by the high walls of the hotel, we were not overly exposed to the society that had 44% of its people living in poverty and about half of these people living in extreme poverty; the society that has such extreme corruption that the people were happy that the nation is in a state of emergency, rather than having either of the two corrupt political parties in power; or the society where success was achieved upon leaving to live in a western country. After all the language training, embassy visits, Muslim clothes shopping and safety & security talks; it was time to join this society that faced many day-to-day struggles.

My next 12 months will be spent working for the Rural Development Board, a govt organisation that aims to alleviate all poverty within rural Bangladesh. My role is to establish the IT infrastructure within the organisation, not an easy feat when they have little infrastructure there and no funding to seed its growth. My first trip to work has been etched into my memory forever, not because it was the first day of my new job, nor because I could not communicate with my tuk tuk driver and he charged me double, nor for the fact I almost fell out of the tuk-tuk, but because it was my first experience to real Bangladesh society, not the chauffeured air-conditioned high society I had been hiding in.

This society hit me when I was stopped at a set of lights and I was approached by a range of desperate people- a lame man on a home made rolling board, a man whose arm was majorly deformed hanging at right angles, a mother who was leading around her blind daughter whose eyes were clouded over, street kids as young as 2 who were selling lollies and tea towels... and all these people wanted was a few taka for their food for the day.

This trip became really memorable a few blocks further down as we pull up next to the median strip and again I was swamped by beggars and young kids trying to make a buck by doing anything for you - from dusting your car to selling used flowers. At these lights there was a lady with her family living on the median strip, she was desperately trying to get a few taka, then all of a sudden a car going in the opposite direction came to a massive screeching halt right next to us. Her young baby had fallen off the median strip and into the oncoming traffic and was cm's from being hit. The desperation she had shown just to get some money is incomprehensible.

I froze, I was confused as to what to do, and even more confused in regards to what my behaviour should have been as she was desperately begging to provide the basics for her and her children.

I have chosen to give to the local NGO's, as they ensure that the money goes into the right hands and the people that need it most. It is extremely hard to say no to all the desperate people, it has not got any easier and will not get any easier.